Taking a little break from the continuity of Jeff's journey through his own head, I thought I'd take a post to tell y'all about an old friend of mine,
TC Tahoe (his Christian name shall remain a secret to my death, for fear operatives of certain organizations should cut out my tongue and feed it to the jackals...I mean...no...really...his name really IS Mr. Tahoe!) is someone I met WAY back in Great Falls, Montana (where we were both born and reared) while in high school. We met in typing class, which we both assumed was just an easy elective, yet here we are 30+ years later, both of us blogging and using all our QWERTY skills every day. Funny how life works out, isn't it?
We sat in adjacent seats and I noticed he had a paperback novelization of both an "Avengers" story AND a "Fantastic Four" story. I forget who said which to whom, but the basic conversation was, "You like comic books?" "Me too!" "Wanna be friends?" "Sure!"..and so we were, best of pals.
We did the normal stuff, went to movies, hung out, cruised Central Ave. in the hearse his dad lent him from the used car lot he worked at, bought comic books, appeared in the school musical...like I said, usual stuff for any red-blooded American boy ho wants to be ridiculed by his (I won't say peers, just because they were the same age as us, didn't make them equal) "other-people-who-went-to-school-with-him"..
We even had the hubris to start up our own comedy team. An improvisational troupe (which also included his sister) we dubbed "Idiots, Inc.". We actually performed a few times for civic groups and the likes, but as you can imagine, the comedy/night club circuit of Central-North-Eastern-South-West Montana is a fairly limited one, and so "II" or "Eye-Eye" was a short lived venture.
After graduation (which I'm unclear still as to if either of us officially did) TC ran off to Southern California to seek his fame and place in this world as a comedian/magician and found, yes he could indeed make a living. He invited me down a few years later to save my artistic soul from the erosiveness of the Great Plains and I followed suit. I however didn't have the confidence to follow my endeavors as he did and just hung around having a damn good time, so no regrets...nothing but happiness really.
Which brings me to point of today's edition of "Unca Jeffy's Rambling Typing" (see, I told you it came in handy!) and bring you up to date.
TC Tahoe is alive and well. I'm sure half-way through that story you all reckoned I was gonna flip you an "Old Yeller" or "Old Shep" story, but I didn't. He's alive and well and living with his wife of (shit, 20+ years, TC?) in Ecuador of all places. He works/worked as a comedian, magician, corporate speaker, motivational speaker...whatever the occasion calls for and he's very happy.
So happy he's dang near begun his own religion over it. "Choose Happy". Do it as a way of life. Make it your first concern...and for the matter your last and every one in between.
Pretty good idea.
TC has a blog all about it. You should check it out here. He even did me the honor of writing about me a couple of weeks ago here.
It's good to hear from friends of the past you've lost touch with.
Especially if it turns out that they're happy.
Talk to you soon.
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